This study offers an autoethnographic exploration of what I've experienced while navigating the public service in Canada as a chronically ill, neurodivergent person who worked at the intersection of accessibility, disability rights and service design. The layered complexities over my 15-year public service career allow me to draw on personal narratives, thematic analysis and systemic design to interrogate the emotional, structural and historical barriers faced by persons with disabilities. I explore key experiences - including systemic discrimination, advocacy and burnout, and moments of resilience, as this research seeks to uncover how policy and practice shape identity and agency.
I am seeking to answer the question about how my lived experiences as a chronically ill, neurodivergent public servant has illuminated the systemic failures of trauma-informed care within public service institutions. I unpack my lived experiences and what they reveal about the interplay between trauma, chronic illness, and the capacity for systemic change in the public service. I’m seeking to unlock my experiences in accessibility as a neurodivergent individual with a 15+ year career within the Canadian Federal Government.
I incorporate elements of poetry, prose, metaphor and visuals to provide an evocative lens to examine these dynamics, positioning this study as a call to action for a more equitable public service. I lean into formative life events that shaped my worldview and the dissonance between policies, practices and lived realities. This study offers a critique on the tokenism and optics-driven culture in modern public service, highlighting the emotional labour often carried by people with disabilities. The performative aspects can allow us to uncover opportunities for genuine change. In modern public service, superficial actions and activism are designed to project an image of support without any tangible or meaningful change. This often leads to the perpetuation of systemic equities. These types of tokenistic behaviours aim to use feel good illusions of progress which mask the pervasive challenges faced by people with disabilities.
Throughout my career I have observed many performative practices, often identifying these and challenging their superficial nature geared towards compliance. Even those projects that started with the goal of developing authentic, equity or inclusion driven reforms to address real needs would find themselves being shrivelled down, de-scoped, de-prioritized, and shaped into fuzzy narratives of change and progress. Moving beyond these performative gestures might seem impossible. It requires a commitment to substantive policy changes, deeper accountability, and more voices invited in that are valued, listened to and actioned upon through reciprocal involvement of disabled lives in the decision-making process. By confronting and dismantling performative activism, we may pave the way for a more equitable public service that truly embodies the principles of inclusivity and accessibility.